Tim K's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week

from the another-tim dept

Normally I try to avoid writing, which was one of the benefits of going into computer science. However, I figured I'd give it a go for this week's favorite posts article. So first off, I wanted to start out with the post from Leigh bringing our attention to the great clip of Rob Reid. Rob does a great job of illustrating how ridiculous the numbers are that Hollywood uses in their attempts to justify their actions. They continue to show that facts and logic have no place in their world as they keep coming up with new ways for consumers to jump through hoops to get their content. We aren't asking them to come up with new ways to deliver the content. All that work has been done for them, they just need to actually start embracing it instead of trying to use QR codes to get people to buy physical discs or making people drive to a store and pay for the 'privilege' of a (more than likely DRM-riddled) digital copy.

This week really had a lot of stories highlighting just how full of themselves the *AAs are, as another story by Mike discussed their claims that without the brilliant gatekeepers there would be no content that people actually wanted. Aside from the fact that they don't actually make the content, I'm pretty sure there are many people on Kickstarter who would disagree with that. Tim Schafer being the most well known with his project ending with a massive $3.3 million dollar funding, which was more than 800% of the goal, for a game that those gatekeepers claimed people wouldn't want. And there are tons of other examples of musicians from Kickstarter and BandCamp, and I'm sure elsewhere who were successfully funded without the help of those gatekeepers.

There were two posts in particular this week that I thought the authors of the original stories did a great job of showing how they must think the public is completely stupid, because I do not see how they could possibly believe what they are trying to get us to believe. First was the article by Tim about the Author's Guild Boss On E-Book Price Fixing Allegations. He tries to describe how amazing Apple is because with Apple "publishers would make less money on every e-book they sold," and there would also be "lower royalties for authors." Yet, despite both of them making less money, the consumers end up paying more money. I can not see how someone can combine those statements into an argument for how Apple is the savior of authors. The second article was another by Mike that a lot of people thought was a bit lengthy, but as Mike noted, was a great point by point debunking of ridiculous claims. Again, I don't understand how people can believe some of their own arguments, let alone try and convince the public of these laughable statements. It does do a few good things though: it shows the world how much this guy doesn't understand the way things work today, it provides a nice single convenient location of debunked 'logic' for easy reference, and one can hope that it could lead him to getting fired, so there is one less luddite in charge.

Of course I cannot leave out the wildly popular article by Mike about how copying still isn't stealing. People seem to ignore the fact that we have different words for a reason. An important reason for the distinction between copying and stealing is so that people cannot make the ridiculous false analogy that Logan made about breaking into a place and stealing a painting versus downloading something from the internet. I'm sorry if you don't understand very basic concepts such as words having definitions and not meaning whatever you think they should mean, but everyone should at least be able to see a very clear distinction between the two, and they should never be used in an attempt to equate stealing and copying.

Now onto better stories from this week, where we have the story about Valve doing a great job again with CwF + RtB. I've been a fan of Valve since the counter-strike days, which by the way, I never even had to buy the game, or pay for the updates or the maps or anything with that game as it was all free with Half-Life (up until Source). That was a great way to CwF and they did it again with TF2. It's good to see that while some companies can no longer innovate, Valve is still doing a great job with their games. I have not actually played TF2 myself, but I hope other developers are paying attention to stories like this so that they can learn how to go free-to-play and still make money, or even increase revenue as Valve has done, and do it without hurting the players who do not want to, or cannot afford to, pay.

This ended up being a bit longer than I was expecting, but I would like to end with this great article about how India is trying to save lives. It never ceases to amaze me how many people are more concerned with their own pockets then saving lives. It is a little disheartening to read in this article about how, despite this being a very good thing, it will likely come with a lot of opposition. Hopefully, we will all do away with drug patents sometime soon (wishful thinking I'm sure), but for now it's great to see India grant this compulsory license to get this drug marketed at a significantly lower price than the current $70,000/year!

Re:

You know, shills and trolls should be required to get a license or a degree.

Maybe we can make them into two separate degrees, one for shilling and one for trolling.

The idea of a shilling degree should be to sufficiently educate them enough not to look too stupid ... so when companies hire these shills off the street they won't totally embarrass their positions. An educated shill ...

"It never ceases to amaze me how many people are more concerned with their own pockets then saving lives."

That is a strawman, plain and simple. They aren't choosing one or the other, they are choosing both. By having income, drug companies can afford to work on and produce the next wonder drug. Without that profit motive, there would be very few new drugs that would have made it to market in the last 30 years. What would India do if the only proven drugs available all dated from before 1980?

The "either or" choice you present wouldn't exist if the drug didn't exist. You cannot ignore how you got to that point - unless you never want to get there again.

Re:

You seem to be confused yourself. In many cases, we hear of drug companies charging exorbitant prices for their drugs. There's doing an honest day's work, making an honest product and charging a fair price, thus earning a profit...and then there's the drug companies, who are basically squeezing as much money as they can out of people.
You seem to be implying that new drugs wouldn't exist at all if drug companies didn't vastly overcharge at all.

Re: Re:

While it may seem that way to many (yes, at times even to me), it is difficult to understand the financials associated with the industry unless you have worked with or within it.

I do not have any precise figures at hand, but having dealt with the lead investigators of many R&D programs for several internationally known pharmaceutical companies, it is the norm that most of the programs do not result in products that are introduced into the market for a host of reasons. Whether one likes it or not, those that do make it to market have to carry a pricing burden that attempts to recoup all of the non-starters. This is absolutely no different than any other industry.

Yes, MM certainly did spend a lot of time at his keyboard concerning the comments by the publisher of Harpers Bazaar. In my view, he did so is a manner reflecting sheer arrogance, almost prideful in personally insulting an idividual he has surely never met. It is possible to disagee without being disagreeable, a point that is almost universally eschewed in his articles.

The individual appears to have many years of experience within the publishing industry, is required to juggle a large number of considerations beyond merely e-book publication, and must do so in the face of other companies engaging in actions that oftentimes reflect marketplace maneuvering by such other companies that are pursued specifically to to corner a broad market that transcends far more than just a single product.

Re: Re:

I do not believe there is any need to disprove the insulting nature of the post since it is clear on its face.

As for the "data", the individual was expressing his personal "opinion", and not trying to articulate an industry-wide norm. He spoke only about his experience as it related to a number of subjects, including certain practices being employed by Amazon giving rise in his mind that Amazon appeared to be pursuing a course to corner the market in both published books and e-books.

He also expressed a concern, certainly not devoid of merit,
that the loss of brick-and-mortar bookstores to online book retailers is, again in his opinion, counterproductive for the reasons he stated. Having purchased hardbacks, paperbacks, and e-books online, I can well understand the fundamental differences between online and brick-and-mortar sales. Each has merit. For Mr. Masnick to denigrate his opinion, which opinion is based upon his intimate familiarity with book publishing, by referring to him as a Luddite demonstrates to me Mr. Masnick is promoting an ideology without engaging in any serious attempt to undertake the hard work associated with thoroughly understanding the book publishing industry before "shooting from the lip".

Response to: Anonymous Coward on Mar 18th, 2012 @ 7:43am

Sure he has many years experience in the publishing industry which means he should have a better understanding of the market trends than he presents. To excuse his position based on his many years of experience in the industry is like saying that we can excuse record labels for cheating the artists they are supposed to represent because they have many years of experience in the industry doing that.

Re: Re: Re:

So I have to take on faith that the patent system is producing fair results. I have to take on faith what some anonymous commenter claims on some blog, I have no idea if you're telling the truth or lying and I have no clear numbers to indicate the extent of anything.

Pharmaceutical corporations refuse to allow independent auditors to audit their costs. They want it both ways, they want an unowed government established monopoly and they want it unregulated. They shouldn't have it both ways.

If they want free market capitalism, abolish patents. If they want a state sanctioned monopoly, it should be regulated, and the public has every right to review the efficiency, effectiveness, and justification of its unowed monopoly.

I want independent auditors reviewing their costs, I want receipts, I want to know where they are spending every last dime, so that I and the public can determine the extent that our unowed monopoly is justified.

Re: Re: Re: Re:

Re: Re: Re:

So you're still full of shit even though there's been many articles on this site and abroad showing how profiteering from a patent monopoly leads to very high prices on drugs that are used to save lives.

Re: Re:

That's all well and good, but can you actually show anything to disprove what Mike wrote, or are you just one a bend about his attitude, which has no actual bearing on the discussion?

This particular commenter never actually responds to details. He only makes vague assertions about how he's much smarter than everyone else and pedantically insults others in vague language so he can later say "merely FYI, no insult was meant by what I said." That's why we call him out as being full of shit. In particular, we say he's full of shit because he acts like a southern belle in that he gets "the vapors" when anyone uses real language around him.

Re: Re: Re:

I do not believe there is any need to disprove the insulting nature of the post since it is clear on its face.

Let's disprove your comment since it's insulting and ignorant on its front. You accuse me of arrogance, but are so ignorant you don't even know what you're talking about.

As for the "data", the individual was expressing his personal "opinion", and not trying to articulate an industry-wide norm. He spoke only about his experience as it related to a number of subjects, including certain practices being employed by Amazon giving rise in his mind that Amazon appeared to be pursuing a course to corner the market in both published books and e-books.

First off, the story we are talking about, concerning Harper's publisher makes no mention, whatsoever, of Amazon. You are factually incorrect.

If you are talking about the discussion of Amazon, you are probably discussing the post about Scott Turow. Turow represents the authors guild, written on the Authors Guild website, so it is reasonable to assume that he is trying to articulate an industry-wide norm, contrary to your point.

Furthermore, while you attack me for "insulting" language towards Turow (I think), you fail in that I didn't write the post about Turow. I did write the post about Harper's publisher -- which, again, was not about Amazon.

Perhaps this is why you never try to talk about facts. When you do, it shows that you are either horribly ignorant, or impossibly confused.

Re:

They aren't choosing one or the other, they are choosing both. By having income, drug companies can afford to work on and produce the next wonder drug. Without that profit motive, there would be very few new drugs that would have made it to market in the last 30 years. What would India do if the only proven drugs available all dated from before 1980?

The "either or" choice you present wouldn't exist if the drug didn't exist. You cannot ignore how you got to that point - unless you never want to get there again.

A plausible sounding argument - unfortunately the evidence for the mechanism you propose is absent - and all the evidence points the other way. At best you are sacrificing real lives right here right now for "maybe if" lives in a hypothetical future. That would be if the monoply mechanism worked as advertised - the truth is that it doesn't - and it positively discourages certain kinds of medical research (such as new antibiotics for example).

What we have instead are a host of drugs that extend the lives of those with terminal conditions at great expense.

Re: Re: Re: Re:

"The Cost of new drugs is vastly overrated."

Let's deal with that one. This is what everyone points to as the "big lie" of the pharma business, yet the numbers just don't support it. For every medication that passes (a) basic research (b) development to an animal testable concept, to (c) basic trials to create a possible human medication, to (d) small sample testing, to (e) larger scale testing, to (f) FDA review, and finally (g) going to market, there are a large number that fail at the different points along the road.

So no, a single drug might not cost 800 million to make, but there might have been a couple of hundred million in this one, and a few hundred million spent on other research that went nowhere, or medication developed and tested and NOT approved.

Further, let's make it clear: Only in exceptional cases are the costs made back quickly. Most drugs require a fairly long time make their money back and turn profitable. Many medications are just not profitable to develop, or the market will not bear the true costs of making it.

Further, let's add one other thing: The risks involved in putting a medication into public use is extreme. In the example of Phen-Fen, Wyeth alone set aside 21 BILLION to cover legal action in the US. With such huge risks involved, there has to be enough money coming in to cover such eventualities.

When you look at a single medication and try to say "it's too expensive" you are making the same sort of mistake that is made when Mike talks about infinite distribution and it's effect on supply and demand. He's looking way too narrowly at a single part of a bigger system, and not understanding the implications of the larger system.

Re: Re: Re: Re:

Your comments here and elsewhere have changed in tenor significantly, and now appear to be the norm directed to anyone and everyone who happens to say something that upsets your ideological apple-cart.

I have no idea what your relationship, if any, is with the pharmaceutical industry. Based upon your comments I assume it is quite limited. Perhaps you should work within that industry and gather first hand data at the source.

Re: Re: Re: Re:

He was not whining about market changes, at least by my reading of his opinion piece. He was expressing concerns about certain marketing activities being pursued by others that he believes are directed to cornering the market...the antithesis of competition.

Re: Re: Re: Re:

My apologies for confusing the HP article with that by Mr. Turow, and for failing to take note that the latter was authored here by another.

My mistakes aside, your "debunking" of Mr. MacArthur's opinion piece was pure insult directed at an idividual who expressed his opinion, one that obviously cuts across the grain of your ideology.

As for the article concerning Mr. Turow (which I now realize was authored by here by someone else...something that has started happening here with much greater frequency), the concerns raised with respect to Amazon's market activities seem to me to be entirely legitimate and worthy of a discussion more broad based than simply "Hey, the market is changing. Get used to it." The activities noted raise the spectre that as and when the dust settles the market may find itself having but one major player, and that is hardly consistent with the notion of a broad competitive base.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

"So no, a single drug might not cost 800 million to make, but there might have been a couple of hundred million in this one, and a few hundred million spent on other research that went nowhere, or medication developed and tested and NOT approved."

Stop pretending that the pharmaceutical industry doesn't include this into their R&D costs.

You have yet to provide any evidence, whatsoever, that the prices are justified. We must just have faith, despite the overwhelming evidence suggesting otherwise.

B: require an evidence based system. I want a receipt on every dollar a pharmaceutical corporation that has patents spends its money on, I want independent auditors, etc... I want evidence, not faith based comments that I must simply trust.

Re: Re: Re:

You ask for details, details are provided, and then nothing more is ever heard back from you.

If I say no insult was intended by a comment, I mean it. You are free to believe otherwise, but you would be mistaken.

Vulgarity stops conversations. It does not encourage conversations. Whenever you resort to vulgarities you do nothing more than undermine the persuasive force of your arguments. I do take solace in the fact you direct your vitriol and personal animosity across the board towards virtually all who call your analysis of issues into question.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

If Mike had merely posted that this guy is an out of touch old codger on the verge of succumbing to Alzheimer's, then I might agree with you. But the fact that he systematically attacked his statements point for point means this was merely an attack on his position and not the man himself. The fact that he belongs in a nursing home is beside the point.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

Your comments here and elsewhere have changed in tenor significantly, and now appear to be the norm directed to anyone and everyone who happens to say something that upsets your ideological apple-cart.

Nope but your comments have always been very much arrogant and focused on ridicule. I'm just calling you out for being full of it as always.

I have no idea what your relationship, if any, is with the pharmaceutical industry. Based upon your comments I assume it is quite limited. Perhaps you should work within that industry and gather first hand data at the source.

No shit I don't work in the industry. You glide right by someone talking to you, as always, to make some miniscule point about how they need first hand information, when they have the same information right in front of you. I highly doubt you've looked at the data or you would have posted it. I highly doubt that you looked at the economic advantages of a patent, instead opting for your cryptographic bullshit on how your comments are so much better than others.

How about backing that up with some facts, then your argument has validity. Until then, you're still full of shit.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

If this is the case why is it that when India didn't have drug patents the drug companies didn't all crash and burn or leave the India? Why is it that instead the market for drugs there increased? Your suggestion that allowing generic, more affordable drugs is so detrimental to the drug companies seems to be missing any proof.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

Amen. My reasoning comes from Stephen Kinsella's discussion. He noted that for one small time, Sweden didn't have a patent system.

And innovation flourished. People spent more time on inventions than huddling into an office to try to prove they needed a patent.

I bet if you actually took away the notion that copyright produced more works (when it clearly hinders the market through confusing contract law and economic good sense) you would have even more content created than what is being produced now.

That way, we can get into the real problems of industry... Namely how the NSA is about to start spying on us in Sep 2012 and how Google is selling us out on that info.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

So no, a single drug might not cost 800 million to make, but there might have been a couple of hundred million in this one, and a few hundred million spent on other research that went nowhere, or medication developed and tested and NOT approved.

And that's all well and good but most of the development and research is done by smaller companies than say... Pfizer, who spends more on advertising their wares.

Until you can explain why the GAO has stated how patents stifle innovation, I'm wary to trust your belief that higher prices = better societal research.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

But it's not an insult to belittle all the technology created and accomplishments in terms of global communication as well as all of the professionals that work in the industry by referring to the Internet as a giant Xerox machine. That's not an insult at all.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

Mr. Masnick,

Is this you behind the proxy, or is this one of your students trying to impress you with his "insight" on business and law? If the former, no need to. If the latter, the insight is uninformed and naive.

Miniscule point? This is hardly the case, unless, of course, taking the time to familiarize yourself with all salient aspects of an issue is "so 20th Century and long past its prime".

I am not the one walking around proclaiming I know drugs are overpriced and without any legitimate reason, that "kids are dying" because of patents, that such drugs were developed under USG "funding ageements", etc., etc., etc.

My comments tend to be directed to matters of law and are proferred when in my opinion what is being said here about what the law "is" is off the mark or plainly wrong. If trying to clarify what the law actually entails is viewed here as arrogant, then it seems to me one with such a view has no interest in educating themselves on the issues, i.e., "Why should I listen to you when I can learn everything I need from sources like Wikipedia?"

Count yourself lucky that I am not inclined to respond to many of the "legal opinions" I read here in a manner like Mr. Sydnor.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

My mistakes aside, your "debunking" of Mr. MacArthur's opinion piece was pure insult directed at an idividual who expressed his opinion, one that obviously cuts across the grain of your ideology.

No. Unlike your typical comments here, which are nothing more than insults directed at me or others, I specifically highlighted multiple fallacies in MacArthur's silly piece and explained why they were incorrect. That's not an insult. That's called bringing actual facts to the game. Something you never do.

As for the article concerning Mr. Turow (which I now realize was authored by here by someone else...something that has started happening here with much greater frequency), the concerns raised with respect to Amazon's market activities seem to me to be entirely legitimate and worthy of a discussion more broad based than simply "Hey, the market is changing. Get used to it." The activities noted raise the spectre that as and when the dust settles the market may find itself having but one major player, and that is hardly consistent with the notion of a broad competitive base.

That you are near totally ignorant of the economics of market change and technology disruption is no surprise here given your previous comments on the subject.

I think Tim's post was pretty clear on the matter, but given your desire to pretend everything we say is wrong because we're not brilliant like you... well, I consider it a badge of honor for Tim that he's now getting your "full of shit" treatment.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

"Wait wait wait, your argument is that because the price is too high, these drugs are not profitable to make? and this is your counter argument to the argument that drugs are priced too high?

Talk about circular, faith based, reasoning."

Huh? Apparently you cannot read.

If a drug costs 100 million to develop, and the total market for it is 1000 doses a year, clearly the marketplace isn't going to pay what is costs to develop and make.

There are plenty of examples out there of drugs that might potentially address a very small number of people with a very rare condition, but the costs to actually fully develop that drug and get it passed the FDA is just not worth the return on it.

Re: Re: Re: Re:

If I say no insult was intended by a comment, I mean it. You are free to believe otherwise, but you would be mistaken.

You're so full of shit it's not even funny. You insult people left and right and do so with the obnoxiousness of a lawyer who thinks he's so fucking clever that he leaves in weasel words such that he can say "merely FYI, no insult was intended in my comment about how I do not trust the comments of those who have not spent at least six and a half decades practicing the obscure area of law which I once practiced -- because unless and until you have done so, you clearly would not know the ins and outs of section x.342a of USC 42323. I would merely suggest that anyone attempting to comment on this subject first spend the requisite six and a half decades doing so."

Vulgarity stops conversations. It does not encourage conversations.

Okay. Fuck off. Seriously. You've been here for years now, and for MANY YEARS I tried to engage you in legitimate conversation and you wouldn't do it. Instead, you were just that same pedantic shit. So no, I'm not trying to engage YOU in conversation, because you're full of shit and there's no use saying otherwise.

I am happy to engage plenty of other people who disagree with me in conversation and do so regularly. There is a small group of people, such as yourself, who choose to use our comments not for legitimate conversation, but merely to be total assholes. And those people, I'll call out.

If you think that means I'm not encouraging conversation, well, fuck off. I'm happy to entertain legitimate conversation. I gave you YEARS of opportunity. You rejected it all. So, if you don't like it, fuck off.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

Despite your proclivity for resorting to language mirroring that of a drunken sailor, I do take a measure of satisfaction in the fact you have adopted several views of the law reflecting points I long ago made, but which at the time you forcefully rejected as uninformed and plainly wrong.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

Is this you behind the proxy, or is this one of your students trying to impress you with his "insight" on business and law? If the former, no need to. If the latter, the insight is uninformed and naive.

Unlike you, I stand behind *every* comment I make by putting my name on it. For you to assume that Jay is me is another one of your jackass moves.

Count yourself lucky that I am not inclined to respond to many of the "legal opinions" I read here in a manner like Mr. Sydnor.

Anyone who quotes Sydnor without it being about what a joke he is is not someone taken seriously. Did you like how he basically brought down an entire think tank with his idiotic claims that made them lose all their funding? Did you see how he was unable to find another job for ages?

Sydnor is a joke. Thinking that anything he's done is taken seriously makes you a complete joke too.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

Despite your proclivity for resorting to language mirroring that of a drunken sailor, I do take a measure of satisfaction in the fact you have adopted several views of the law reflecting points I long ago made, but which at the time you forcefully rejected as uninformed and plainly wrong.

That's how you respond? Hilarious. Seriously: go the fuck away. You have never provided any serious analysis on anything on this site, and you know it. My two year old has a more substantive notion of how to debate than you do.

Re: Re: Re: Re:

Another trollie. Mike must be doing it awfully right seeing the amount of shills (paid or not) he's been attracting to TD.

Mike is dismissing him not for disagreeing but for failing at presenting factually/evidence based arguments to support his dissenting point. I don't agree with Mike 100% of the time too but if I ever post my opinion here I'll either base it on something or clearly state it's only an opinion. And that's exactly what you shills usually fail hard to do. We don't call a dissenting voice a shill or a troll.

I think opposing views can be constructive ad are very welcome but you and your merry friends are all but constructive. I myself have my own views on all the copyright (patents, trademarks [insert Govt granted monopolies here]) and contrary to many of the ppl I read and comment with I don't think simply abolishing copyright is the solution (even though it's so broken that it does need to be scrapped and get a fresh start). But I also think Mike is rather conservative in his ideas of copyright and the likes (even though he isn't conservative at all if you include the MAFIAA and its shills in the mix). But even with this you don't see me swearing and insulting Mike when I disagree with him (or Marcus, Tim, whoever). Feel free to link to a post I ever did that.

If you don't want to be dismissed just meka it so you deserve not to be dismissed.